Mark speaks up

[KingBahamut]

Speaking at the LinuxWorld conference in London on Wednesday, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, said that although Microsoft is seen as being very pro-patent at the moment, if every other software maker enforced its patents in the same way then Microsoft would find it very difficult and expensive to do business. 'I think in ten years you will see Microsoft become a major opponent of patents and we will see very large software vendors turn around their position on patents,' Shuttleworth said.

External Link
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,39020381,39226541,00.htm

I can only hope this is a true vision.

[kleeman]

There was a M$ rep on the panel. Sounds to me like Mark was tweaking him a bit. Perhaps this kind of thing passes for communication. My feeling is that M$ are smarter than that and will be very selective about how they harass open source with patents.

[blastus]

It's amazing how people way back in 1882 forshadowed the proliferation and abuse of software patents that we see today so accurately.

"It was never the object of patent laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax on the industry of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of unknown liability lawsuits and vexatious accounting for profits made in good faith." — U.S. Supreme Court, Atlantic Works vs. Brady, 1882

[nsa_767]

It's amazing how people way back in 1882 forshadowed the proliferation and abuse of software patents that we see today so accurately.

"It was never the object of patent laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax on the industry of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of unknown liability lawsuits and vexatious accounting for profits made in good faith." — U.S. Supreme Court, Atlantic Works vs. Brady, 1882

Let's not carried away... Patents have their place, they protect intellectual property, guaranteeing a monetary return on the development of new products/technologies and hence encourages innovation. (Though, I'm not saying it is the only model that works.... the open-source model is working tremendously well...)

The actual problem is in how long a patent lasts... Patents should only last long enough to provide the firm with fair renumeration for his or her innovation, but not so long as to hamper further development and create a monopoly. i.e. Patents shouldn't be there long enough to cause significant barriers to entry.

This poses a real problem in the world of computers were development is already so rapid. Perhaps software patents shouldn't last longer than a year or two? :o

Whatever happens, M$ will always find someway to make money.